VMS shell quoting help

In debugging a new and fascinating MakeMaker/VMS problem, I discovered this gem:

$ perl -wle "print q[12 '3' 45]"
12 '3' 45
$ perl -wle "print q[12 '' 45]"
12

'' seems to mean something special, even inside double quotes!

What's going on and what's the work around?

For the curious, the issue is this:

	$(NOECHO) $(ABSPERLRUN) "-MExtUtils::Install" -e "pm_to_blib({@ARGV},
'[.blib.lib.auto]', '$(PM_FILTER)', '$(PERM_DIR)')" "--" -

when PM_FILTER is not set.  The argument is completely lost and perl sees:

    pm_to_blib({@ARGV}, '[.blib.lib.auto]', , '755')

to add to the fun, Perl will collapse multiple commas.  So that's equivalent to:

    pm_to_blib({@ARGV}, '[.blib.lib.auto]', '755')

and the PM_FILTER argument is lost to the void. :/


-- 
Defender of Lexical Encapsulation